LOS ANGELES – The Dodgers have been gushing about Corey Seager for awhile.

After all, Seager was their first-round pick in the 2012 draft and came into this season as the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball and a leading contender to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award.

“There’s really nothing he can’t do on the baseball field – the at-bats, the late-inning production, playing a premium defensive position, hitting the ball out of the park, driving in runs, taking a walk when he needs to, running the bases,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said recently of his rookie All-Star. “He’s really continued to get better. It’s scary to think he’s only 22 and how much he’s grown and already become a very, very good major-league player at this stage in his career.

“Not to take anything away from anybody else on the ballclub. But with what he does on the offensive and defensive side – yeah, he’s our best player.”

That it has happened is less surprising than how quickly and smoothly the shortstop has emerged as the star he was expected to be.

Even in a franchise that has had 16 previous Rookie of the Year winners, Seager is the youngest position player in franchise history to make the All-Star team as a rookie. He will also participate in Monday’s Home Run Derby at Petco Park.

At the break, he leads the team in hits (105), runs scored (60) and home runs (17) – a trifecta no Dodger rookie has pulled off over the course of a full season since Jackie Robinson in 1947. If that’s not enough for you, he also leads in batting average, total bases, OPS, OPS-plus and WAR.

Seager needs just three home runs in the second half to snatch the franchise record for home runs by a shortstop away from Hanley Ramirez (19 in 2013). His recent 19-game hitting streak is the longest by anyone in the NL this season and two games short of the franchise record for a rookie.

When he played his 100th big-league game in late June, he reached that milestone with a .301 average, 20 home runs and 64 runs scored. According to Elias Sports, only four other players in the past 60 years have had a .300 average with at least 20 homers and 60 runs scored in their first 100 big-league games – Hall of Famers Orlando Cepeda and Carlton Fisk, Wally Joyner and Ryan Braun.

Just as easy as Seager expected it to be, right?

“I did not. I really didn’t,” said Seager – as self-effacing off the field as he is skilled on it. “There’s always a learning curve. I didn’t (expect this).”

Roberts certainly expected a bumpier road in Seager’s first full season.

“To see the consistency from a young player as the league is trying to figure out how to pitch him and get him out – his consistency just doesn’t happen. This isn’t normal,” Roberts said. “I would expect – as with any young player – highs and lows.”

Seager had a pattern in his brief minor-league career. He tended to struggle for a couple weeks at each level before taking off. He calls April that “evolving moment” at the big-league level.

Seager finished April with a .250 average. 707 OPS and only two home runs in his first 24 games. Since then, he has hit .315 with 16 doubles, two triples, 15 home runs and an OPS pushing .950.

“Every level kind of pitched differently, had different approaches,” Seager said. “I guess it was shortened here because you have so much information. There’s so much data already that it kind of minimizes the gameplanning going into it.”

Seager tries to minimize how deep he goes into that well, though.

“I try not to take in too much of it,” Seager said. “I try to pick what you can from it and try not to overload. That’s kind of what I’ve tried to do.

“You can get so much – what every pitcher throws in 0-1 counts to left-handers. In any inning. Runners on first and third. You can find it if you wanted to.”

Roberts does credit statistical analysis with helping the 6-foot-4 Seager handle the defensive demands of a position he is supposed to be too big to play – “more times than not, we’re in the right place,” the manager said.

Seager likes to keep baseball in the right place too. There is a house rule banning shop talk at the home he shares with Joc Pederson, Alex Wood and Trayce Thompson.

“I roomed with a kid named Tyler Ogle in 2014,” Seager said of the catcher now with Double-A Tulsa. “He loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it. I’d wake up at 2 o’clock in the morning and he’d be sitting on the couch watching Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, their swings and stuff.

“You gotta get away from it when you leave the field. Be a kid. Be a guy. Then turn it back on when you get back to the field.”

That is a reflection of “his character and his pulse,” Roberts said, placing him in the group of under-25 stars that are “what’s great about the game right now.”

“You talk about young, exciting players,” Roberts said. “I believe he’s the best shortstop in the National League and when you take both sides of the ball, in the big leagues.”